Dancing's Derek Hough: I'm Excited About Amy's New Legs!

Hey everyone!Thanks for your votes!I'm super proud of Amy and super happy with our swing. We had a little mistake. My jacket got in the way. I put my arm behind my back and she's supposed to grab my hand, ...

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By TV Guide

The State Journal-Register

By TV Guide

Posted Mar. 28, 2014 at 6:05 PM

By TV Guide

Posted Mar. 28, 2014 at 6:05 PM

Hey everyone!Thanks for your votes!I'm super proud of Amy and super happy with our swing. We had a little mistake. My jacket got in the way. I put my arm behind my back and she's supposed to grab my hand, but my hand went inside my jacket, so she couldn't grab my hand. It was no big deal. I thought she did great because right before we went on stage, her foot came loose! Because the floor is sticky, it was causing friction and it was coming undone. She needed a wrench to tighten it up, so I went to a lighting guy and he pulled out a Swiss army knife and she just sat on the floor tightening it up. She said she was really nervous and she wanted to do well. I said to her, "Listen, we're rooting for you. Every step that you take is a success. Just remember that. Enjoy it. Don't put so much pressure on yourself." I could kind of see her relax and we went out there and she did a fantastic job. During the performance, it came loose again. She told me afterward that it was kind of moving around. It was interesting, but it was really cool and I'm really proud of the way it went.Amy got new legs this week, but it's not because of this incident. I've been talking to her prosthetics maker about options and they found feet for swimming. When you swim, your feet are pointed, so when she puts these on, she's on her toes the entire time. Her face just lit up after she put them on. She was like, "I feel like a lady. I wanna cross my legs slowly and show off my feet." It was really sweet. I am really, really excited about this week and her new legs! What it's done for us is it's opened up a whole room of moves that we couldn't do with the other prosthetics because it wouldn't aesthetically look right. We have the contemporary, so now we're able to add lifts and use her legs in ways we couldn't before. It's nice to have that freedom now. I'm also excited because Amy's story is so important and the opportunity to be able to share something with the audience and with her family is inspiring. Plus, no one's tried to dance in swim prothestic legs before, so Amy's going to be a pioneer as usual!The double elimination was pretty crazy and I'm sorry to see Diana and Sean go. I was worried Diana wouldn't be able to perform her dance since they eliminated her beforehand, so I was glad she got her last dance. None of us had any idea it was happening. Sometimes you hear rumors and stuff about what's going to go down, but nobody knew. They've been very good about keeping things secret this year. I feel like they're gonna throw something at us every single week. You're always concerned about getting eliminated, but I thought we did enough to stay. I know that Amy has so much more to give and she's improving every single day. When I first thought about doing this season and I heard about Amy, I got really inspired by her, but I didn't know what we'd be able to do. I was coming in with no knowledge and expectations. It's been great to be able to continually discover things each and every day.The switch-up voting is going on right now. The whole thing will be interesting. We all have different teach methods and different theories about technique, connection and certain things like that. It'll be funny if the celebrity goes, "Well, so-so taught me the opposite," and the pros are going to be like, "Well, this week, you have to trust me." That might be interesting if there are any contradictions, but there might not be any. I don't know if any couples have made deals to try to get fans to vote for a certain switch, but I know Amy would like to get Mark because he and I are close. Whoever she gets, I'm going to be very supportive. I'm going to be right there if they need any help. I'm not going to abandon her, like, "Nope, nope! You're not my partner!" See you Monday!Derek